It's nearly 8 am here in Tbilisi and it's still dark outside, as we're only 2 days from the shortest day of the year, and since the increased speed of the earth's rotation as we near perihelion on January 3rd means that the sun will come up a few minutes later a day until December 27th. It will certainly make getting out of bed and going to work that much harder in early January once our Christmas holidays are over!
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| Brian and Terri in action |
On Friday, December 14th we welcomed Brian, a friend of friends of ours, to Tbilisi. He arrived at the usual unsocial hour of most Tbilisi flights (5:20 am) and had a much-needed nap to beat jet lag while I went off for my final half-day of classes. I returned, we packed up Douglas, our faithful Delica, and Terri, Brian and I drove north towards Gudauri. The road was eerily empty, at least on the driving part of the road. We drove past hundreds of trucks parked on the shoulder of the highway, waiting to cross the Jvari Pass to Russia. It had snowed heavily on Wednesday and Thursday, and the pass was still closed to trucks, although open to cars. We drove along, up the Aragvi Valley, until we reached the steep wall that marks the climb into Gudauri. In the village it took a bit of tense maneuvering and navigating to get ourselves to the parking lot of our accommodation, as snow clearing hadn't yet really taken place. Both we and Brian had booked apartments in a big complex, Gudauri Loft, located right beside the slopes. We unpacked and Brian treated us to supper in the complex's restaurant, along with a huge, boisterous group of Russian tourists and entertained by a Georgian band. The festivities continued long after we had gone to bed and echoed down the hallways, impeding sleep.
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| Me in the powder |
The following morning was the first day of the ski season in Gudauri, and the lifts were unexpectedly free of charge for the day, attracting big crowds. There was plenty of powder accessible from the lifts, and we had a marvellous day under blue skies playing in the soft, fluffy snow. The topmost lift wasn't open yet, and looking at the remnants of avalanches off the slopes below it, it was easy to see why. There was almost no snow on the ground before the big dump on Wednesday, and so the new wind-driven snow didn't bond very well with the warm, bare ground below it, releasing in avalanches on almost all steep faces.
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| An outdoor lunch on our first day |
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| Georgia and its mountains |
The conditions kept us from exploring too far afield in search of fresh tracks, although we had no need: there were plenty of mellow, deep powder lines to be had everywhere. For Terri and myself, it was the first time on skis in several years, but I found that, like riding a bicycle, skiing powder is something that I never forget how to do. I was on my faithful fixed-heel Movement Goliath touring skis, and they handled as well as ever in the powder, leading to effortless floating over the top of the snow. Terri also had a good day in the soft stuff, although her leg muscles were complaining by the end of the day. Brian had a few more problems in the powder (not helped by the short, skinny skis he had rented), and his left leg was definitely unhappy by lunchtime. We lunched at the top of the mountain, gazing out over the snowy peaks of the Caucasus and soaking up the sunshine.
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| Dramatic light on nearby peaks |
That evening we ate in our apartment, dining on fine mtsvadi (grilled meat) that Terri cooked up on our tiny hotplate; Terri has outfitted us with a travelling kitchen, inspired by our setup in Stanley, that leaves us independent of restaurants. Brian is a cribbage fanatic, and so he and I played a few games. He ended up well ahead in the final accounting, but we both enjoyed the games; cribbage was a big part of family evenings from a young age, and I really like the game. Terri, Brian and I fell into an easy rhythm of conversation, as though we had known each other for decades rather than just two days.
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| A fine spot for lunch! |
Sunday morning Brian awoke feeling unwell, probably a combination of altitude (we were sleeping at 2000 metres) and jet lag, so Terri and I set off alone up the mountain. (Brian would venture out later on his own and ended up having a great day, with his leg feeling much better than on the previous day.) We bought our season pass (a steal at US$ 225 for every ski resort in Georgia!). It was even sunnier than the day before, and the views were magnificent. I was on my brand-new telemark skis; after a decade of skiing on a lovely pair of G3 Barons, I decided this year to trade up to a pair of properly fat powder skis, some
Salomon Backlands. In the powder, they proved magnificent, letting me ride far higher on top of the snow, making turning much more easily than I had in the past. I was a bit wary of how well my fifty-year-old knees would hold up to the rigours of telemark turns, with their alternating lunges, but I needn't have worried. My technique in powder came back to me very quickly, although I fell a couple of times on the groomed piste when I forgot how fat the skis were and managed to put one ski right on top of the other. We climbed up to the highest available point on the mountain and soaked up the panoramic view of Caucasus peaks, including the beautiful
Chaukhi Massif that we had twice
hiked below in the fall. Terri was skiing well, but was feeling whacked by altitude, so after a long, sun-drenched lunch halfway up the mountain, we parted ways, with her returning to the apartment to rest while I headed off to explore a ridge beside the resort.
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| New telly skis, front and back |
I remembered this ridge from our previous trip to Gudauri back in 2015. It provides an easy ski tour, with 100 metres of climbing giving almost 400 metres of descent. Luckily it's not steep enough for avalanches to be a serious worry, and there were other tracks to reassure me. I shouldn't really have been up there alone, but it was close enough to the resort that Terri could keep an eye on me from the apartment should anything go wrong. I ended up making two descents, both of them magnificent. The snow was the best I had skied in two days, steep, deep and almost untracked. I got into a good rhythm on the telemark skis, and looking back uphill I was narcissistically pleased with the even sine curve I had left on the snow. Telemarking is a much more physical, technical style of skiing than you have with fixed heels, and it's indescribably pleasing to get it right. I mused as I skied that there are few things as exhilarating in life as doing something complicated and doing it well, especially if it's something that involves both physical and mental skill. Solving math contest problems, playing blitz chess, skiing powder, playing serve-and-volley tennis, playing piano and taking pictures of wildlife all fall into that category and I enjoy all of them. I also enjoyed the sensation of putting on my skins and climbing uphill, earning my turns and getting a bit more exercise than you get riding the lifts. I returned uphill on my skins to another delicious meal concocted by Terri and more cribbage with Brian.
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| Terri rips up the pow |
Monday was a bit of a write-off. Brian departed on a marshrutka for Tbilisi to meet up with his grown daughters while we lazed in our apartment, dissuaded from skiing by the whiteout fog blanketing the mountain. Eventually, around noon, the clouds parted somewhat and we headed uphill, intent on doing the ski-tour line together that I had soloed the day before. Sadly the clearing in the clouds proved to be a sucker hole, and we were enclosed in fog once we got halfway up the mountain. There are few sensations more nauseating than trying to navigated downhill across a pure white landscape through pure white clouds: there's nothing for the eyes to focus on, and you feel as though you're not moving when in fact you are. We picked our way down slowly, both feeling a bit physically sick, trying not to lose the piste. When we finally came out of the bottom of the clouds, it was grey, flat light that made it almost as hard to discern features as in the fog. We bailed on the idea of touring and headed back for a lazy afternoon of studying Georgian and reading.
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| The infinite promise of a skin track |
Tuesday was much better. We checked out, packed our Delica, then set off to ski. The skies were blue again and we decided to try our tour again. The descent to the start of the skin track was wonderful, through fluffy, deep powder. We put our skins on our skis and glided easily uphill. Terri was feeling the altitude at first, but then got into the rhythm of the climb. I love the feeling of climbing up on good snow sparkling in sunshine: you never know for sure how the ski down will be, but the fluffy powder holds out the infinite promise of untold pleasures to come. It was pretty and we were alone in the world, staring out at the neighbouring peaks. The steeper faces were starting to shed snow in full-depth whale-mouth avalanches, exposing brown earth below. There were alarming crown-wall fractures on many other faces, showing that the snowpack was far from stable. We didn't venture too far off the tracks of other skiers in choosing our descent line. I was on my fixed-heel Goliaths again, and the descent was just as satisfying as it had been two days previously. Terri had recovered from altitude and had a great descent as well, laying down a series of elegant shorter-radius turns in the powder. We both loved the ski down, and a brief skin brought us back to the piste.
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Terri skinning up the hill
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| A rich reward for our efforts! |
We skied down to our car, packed up and then made the fateful decision to drive uphill towards the top of the Jvari Pass to scout out off-piste descents and possible ski tours. We got to the crest of the climb and then ran into a huge lineup of cars stuck, waiting for uphill convoys of trucks to pass. Nobody was going anywhere in our direction, and there were limited options for turning around. Eventually we backed out of our place in the queue and backed past everyone during a lull in uphill traffic, then pulled a seven-point turn between the high walls of snow and headed back downhill. We did see a couple of fabulous-looking off-piste descents and filed them for future use; the full-blown ski touring possibilities, however, all seemed to be avalanche-prone and not so appealing.
We ground our way slowly back to Tbilisi behind hundreds of trucks.
When I cycled this road back in 2009, the Russian border was closed and there was almost no traffic. Now trucks from Turkey and the entire post-Soviet world from Kazakhstan to Belarus trundle up and down relentlessly, making it far from ideal either for cycling or driving a car. We were relieved to make it back to Tbilisi in one piece.
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Terri descending the final pitch of our ski tour
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| Our tracks (along with a few dozen others) |
Now we are planing our next adventures. It seems as though Gudauri and Bakuriani aren't scheduled to receive more snow anytime soon, so we are looking at visiting
Goderdzi (in Ajara, southwestern Georgia) and
our autumn playground in Svaneti to get more snow. With our legs and gear tuned up, we look forward to plenty more great descents!
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Terri on our way to the bottom of our ski tour
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